The Diary
by illnevertellxo
Summary: After the deaths of Allie and Noah, their daughters come across an old journal while cleaning out their house. In it is the every detail of their parent's lives, from the moment Allie left Lon, to the day she began to forget everything. Read as...


Chapter One: The Book

The death of my mother had not been a shock. Everyday she grew worse, forgetting more, falling deeper into her disease. It was almost as if she had a died long before then, and only her determination kept her body moving. But my father? My father's death nearly destroyed me. He had a few heart attacks, and I suppose that should have prepared me for the worst. But he seemed so strong that I almost began to think he would hold onto life forever. And I wished he would. But when I got the phone call that they had found my parents, huddled together in my mother's hospital bed, I felt foolish for ever holding to that thought.  
It was a week after the funeral, and my sister and I had finally worked up the courage to go back to the house that we grew up in. Maggie was the oldest of the three children, followed by Edmund, and then me. I had always fit the "youngest child" mold, wanting always to be the center of my parent's attention. Maggie looked most like Mama, something I had always been jealous of. She was the only one of the three of us to have light hair, and when she wore her hair a certain way I would almost swear it was my mother. But I was proud to have hair like my father, for my father was my greatest hero. I had always loved to hear him recite poetry to us before we went to bed. He made me wonder what he was thinking a he read them, though I know most of the time he was thinking of Mama. That is why I became a journalist. I wanted to be as good with words as my father had been.  
Maggie fumbled a bit with the keys to the door before I finally heard the sound of the hinges. She looked at me and smiled, trying so hard to stay strong but failing miserably. "Well here we go!" She walked into the house, and as she did I could smell the familiar scent of home. Mama and daddy hadn't lived in the house for months, but I could have sworn that I could smell a fresh apple pie that my mother had just baked. I could smell the wood, of a house not being lived in also, and it made me feel empty inside.  
Maggie set the keys down on the table, then ran her hand over the edge, like she was trying to get back a memory. I walked through the kitchen into the living room and looked at the fireplace. On the mantle sat familiar pictures of our lives. Maggie winning her first beauty pageant, Edmund sitting on a horse next to grandfather, me sitting on the steps with my best friend, a Popsicle on my hand and the new summer at my disposal, and my parents. An old picture, but the feelings it gave you felt new and exciting. It made you hopeful. It made you realize that some people really do live happily, at least most of the time, ever after. I smiled, but the tears were building up in my eyes. I missed them so terribly it as almost to hard to stand.  
We had come to clean up the house, to try and sort everything out between the three of us, so that something could be done with the house. Though none of us wanted to sell it, our lives didn't require it either. We all had houses, and Edmund and Maggie had families of their own. We guessed that we would have to sell it, but refused to say it out loud. We didn't want anything to be permanent just yet. Maggie had already gone straight to work, and I could hear her moving boxes around in an upstairs room. I took my coat off and sat down on the couch. I wondered to myself how long sorting out a lifetime of memories would take.  
I was only sitting for a moment, because my sister had begun to yell something. "WHAT!" I stood up and began to follow her voice.  
"I SAID COME HERE! ARE YOU DEAF?" I walked up the stairs slowly, listening to the familiar creek with every step I took. I felt like I hadn't been home for years. I stopped walking when I reached the top of the stairs. "What room are you in?"

"The only one with the door open and the light on, Mary Ellen." She was in my parent's bedroom. I was almost afraid to go in. Memories of early morning wake ups jumped into my head. Mama and Daddy's bed was the best one in the house to jump on.

Reluctantly, I walked into the room to see Maggie struggling with a box on the top shelf of the closet. She turned to me and stared for a moment. Then she let out a sigh, "Well are you going to help me or not?"

"Oh! Oh yeah, here." I helped her carefully put the box on the floor. We both sat down and examined it, without opening it. It had my mother's name on it, and had been quite heavy. "I feel like we're doing something wrong." Maggie gave me a questionable glance. "I mean, going through Mama's things."

She looked down at the floor, "Mary I don't think that she'll mind."

It was Maggie's "big sister" way of reminding me that they weren't coming back. She always made everything harder by trying to soften the blow.  
Silence filled the room for a while before I finally spoke, beginning to stand up, "Do you think we should got some lunch first?"

Maggie grabbed my arm. "Do you want to open it together?"

I sat back down and looked at the box, "Yeah." We both put our hands on the lid. We looked each other in the eyes before doing anything. Neither of us knew what we were going to find, or what we were looking for, but we were about to find out. A second later the box lid was lying on the floor, and we stared into the mysterious box.  
A wedding dress that didn't look familiar, a few more smaller boxes, piles of photographs, and lying on the top… a book.  
It was what Maggie and I had both been staring at, but I was the first one to pick it up. As I opened the cover my head was filling up with emotions.  
"What is it?" Maggie looked at the book when she spoke, not me.  
"It's her journal."

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